Hon Chair, hon members of the august House and hon Deputy Minister Joyce Mabudafhasi, hon guests, dear ladies and gentlemen who are with us here today, good morning to all of you. We deliver this Budget Vote for the Department of Water and Environmental Affairs, whilst also preparing ourselves for the end of the second decade of democracy, mindful of what we have been able to achieve so far and what lies ahead. Next year's general elections will not only confirm the solid commitment to a democratic order, but they will happen in the year our democracy will be turning 20 years old. Next month, we will also be celebrating World Environment Day, a day that allows us an opportunity to pause and reflect on the work that was done in our sector, and how we are able to collaborate with other facets of society in relation to the environment. We will also remind ourselves of the centrality of people, the economy and environmental preservation. These are what are called the three pillars of sustainable development, and part of the slogan that we used during Rio+20, which goes like this: Planet, people and prosperity. None of these three areas can exist without the others. The Basotho speaking people of our country tell us that "noka e tlatswa ke dinokana". [A river is swelled by streams.]
Our challenge as a nation that is a developing state, which we are, is indeed to find a healthy balance between the three pillars: economic growth, social development, and environmental sustainability. In pursuit of South Africa's developmental pathway, a shared vision and common goal of sustainability has emerged as a strong driver of industry values and societal behaviour.
As a nation, we adopted the National Development Plan, which maps out the vision of our country for the next 20 years. As the environmental sector, we will implement related aspects of this plan to deal with sustainable development.
Our rich environmental and natural resource endowment such as productive land, clean and sufficient water, healthy air, beautiful landscapes - which are beautiful indeed - vibrant cities and towns, villages and cultures are the very foundation for our inclusive, sustainable economic and social development, and therefore must not only benefit us today, but also our children and grandchildren. Without clean water, there is no life; without the protection of plant and animal life, there is no tourism, no benefit to rural communities through the development of sustainable utilisation projects, and therefore no jobs. "Noka e tlatswa ke dinokana". [A river is swelled by streams.]
Our ecological infrastructure is nature's equivalent of our built infrastructure. It includes our mountain catchments, wetlands and coastal dunes, and is also increasingly being recognised for its importance to service delivery in both the rural and urban contexts. However, this has not always been recognised as such, largely because the goods and services provided by the ecological infrastructure have to date been freely available in relative abundance. Land degradation and climate change, however, are rapidly undermining the world's ecological infrastructure and its ability to support sustainable development and also service delivery.
The National Development Plan reminds us of the escalating costs of maintaining built infrastructure in the face of increasing natural disasters, as well as the rising costs of delivering clean water to our communities. This suggests that the value of biodiversity assets and ecological infrastructure now urgently needs to be understood by those sectors facilitating the implementation of this wonderful National Development Plan of ours.
In support of this, the SA National Biodiversity Institute is spearheading a very innovative programme of work on ecological infrastructure analysis inclusive of costing of our natural capital. I know that there are people who are against this but I think we have to do that. With this body of knowledge, we will be empowered to make informed decisions that are development-related. This will be particularly beneficial at a municipal level, but also in aid of water security and disaster risk management. Investment in the management of our ecological infrastructure will secure and build natural capital in South Africa, and will provide a foundation for building climate-resilient economies and also create jobs.
We have now developed initiatives to support effective decision-making in programmes such as the Presidential Strategic Integrated Projects, Sips. We do this through the strategic information and decision-making support tools that we have already established, like the Biodiversity Geographic Information System, amongst other innovations that we have. True to our commitment in our budget speech last year, we celebrated the International Day for Biodiversity this year with the launching of the Mining and Biodiversity Guideline jointly with the mining sector and the Ministry of Mineral Resources.
Coming to the oceans and coast, we want to acknowledge that South Africa has not fully exploited the economic, commercial, industrial or large-scale livelihood dependency on the oceans that surround our country. Geographically, our country is centrally positioned between the east and west trade routes. Opportunities for the ship support industry and ports enjoy a healthy market. South Africa, however, has no large bulk commercial ships on its national ship register. We need to do a lot more with regard to this, not only in the field of transport and oceans, but in other fields as well.
South Africa has an abundance of terrestrial natural and marine living resources, which makes us well placed to exploit the Blue Economy that our location provides. More recently, countries that have invested in ocean research and engineering have appreciated the development advantage that can be accessed through oceans. In this regard, our Green Paper on Policy for the National Environmental Management of the Oceans was submitted to Cabinet last year for approval and was published for comments. As we speak, we are working on the embodiment of the comments or ensuring that we take those comments into cognisance, and also plan to resubmit to Cabinet for final approval.
This policy was generally well received, with comments highlighting that the oceans have the potential for many new areas of investment and development; and therefore the departments need to work together in the management and sustainable use of the ocean environment.
In March this year, I led a delegation to a ministerial segment of the Benguela Current Commission, the BCC, which culminated in the signing of the Benguela Current Convention in Benguela. We did this in Angola. The three countries making up this BCC are South Africa, Angola and Namibia, and are committed to common regional goals, above national interests, to promote the long-term conservation, protection, rehabilitation, enhancement and sustainable use of the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystems resources. "Noka e tlatswa ke dinokana". [A river is swelled by streams.] Working together, we can do more.
We all know that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Cop, 18 Conference was held in Doha late last year. This secured the Durban legacy with an outcome that concluded the necessary provisions to give effect to a second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, including legal, operational, ambitional and environmental integrity considerations. The implication of these outcomes for South Africa is our continued active and strategic engagement in the full implementation of the Durban as well as the Doha decisions. Particular among these, is to facilitate the implementation of urgent climate action now, as this process will inevitably inform the legal outcome being negotiated for the period beyond 2020. This negotiation is focused on the further development and operationalisation of the Durban and Doha decisions in a manner that gives effect to the principles of the convention, particularly the common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities as well as ongoing political issues such as equity and sustainable development, intellectual property rights and unilateral trade measures.
Key elements include institutional arrangements for finance and technology to enable meaningful mitigation and adaptation action by developing countries; pre-2020 mitigation ambition by all developed countries; elaborating the concept of comparable effort of mitigation commitments by developed countries not participating in the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol; and the operationalisation of the agreed transparency arrangements for mitigation by developed countries and developing countries. Other Cop 18 decisions included the completion of negotiations on a new legal outcome under the convention by 2015, which is to come into effect from 2020.
Careful analysis of this changing political landscape is needed to ensure that South Africa is well placed within a political alliance that would best serve our national interests. Due consideration of the impact that the broader post-2015 development agenda process will have on the climate change process and the prominent role that climate change will continue to play in all sustainable development debates is also required.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will recall that South Africa has adopted a Climate Change Response Policy. Implementation of this policy and our global commitment to greenhouse gas emission reduction is progressing well and we will finalise our emission reduction objectives and carbon budget approach for each sector to enable the transition to a low carbon economy.
The policy implementation actions and activities include the analysis of mitigation potential in key economic sectors as the basis for the establishment of the desired emission reduction outcomes, Deros, and defining the optimal mix of measures for achieving those Deros, with greatest benefit and least cost to our economy. They also include the development and setting up of long-term adaptation scenarios for key sectors on the basis of a set of locally relevant climate scenarios that would inform an integrated approach to planning and the implementation of South Africa's adaptation response. In addition, this requires the development of a national monitoring and evaluating system that tracks South Africa's transition to a lower carbon and climate-resilient economy.
The SA Weather Service's collaboration with an organisation like the Water Research Commission has enabled Saws' formulation of strategies that are aimed at ensuring that, as a weather-ready nation, proactive measures are invented, aimed at reducing the vulnerability and exposure of our rural communities to increased weather and climate disasters. We appreciate the work that has been done by the SA Weather Service. I am not going to go into detail about all the other work that they do. Fela re re, "noka e tlatswa ke dinokana". [We are saying, a river is swelled by streams.] Working together, we can do more for our environment.
The development of a management strategy for environmental impact assessment on integrated permitting system to address key concerns and constraints within the current environmental impact management systems, is well under way. We must acknowledge the good work done by the Department of Energy in processing all the applications for renewable energy. Up to 25 000 megawatts of wind and solar projects have been authorised for the various parts of our country to date. We have been working with them, and congratulations to the team that has been working very hard to conduct the EIAs. This is far more than the original quota for the first three rounds of the bidding programme. The quota that was set by the Department of Energy was 3 750 megawatts.
We have actually processed more than double the amount of environmental impact assessments, EIAs, which we normally process in a single year. I think we really deserve a big round of applause on this one. [Applause.] You hear me.
In order to facilitate and support accelerated implementation of the sustainable development initiatives, particularly in the Strategic Infrastructure Programme, Sip, a streamlined environmental authorisation process has been introduced. Other tools such as Strategic Environment Assessments are also being developed to further accelerate authorisations, while ensuring sound environmental impact management in line with sustainable development principles. We are part of the Presidential Infrastructure Co-ordinating Commission, the PICC, and we are expected to provide regular feedback in terms of the processing of applications, and we will not do anything that actually fails this process. We will continue to support that.
It is critical that the department is equipped with the necessary capacity to help manage timeframe compliance; avoid costly errors; eliminate frustrations associated with the review of these projects; and eradicate obstacles that give rise to perceptions that our environmental impact assessments are responsible for delays in infrastructure development. We aim to provide an integrated, more streamlined process for major infrastructure projects throughout the assessment process. In line with this approach, we are proactively engaging the respective Strategic Infrastructure Project Co-ordinators, in addition to our current initiatives with the state-owned enterprises and state-owned companies, in order to provide support and guidance in terms of requisite EIA legislative requirements and the process to be followed.
In line with our commitments to the successful outcomes of the 2011 and 2012 Conventions on Climate Change, Desertification and Biodiversity, and the Rio+20 Sustainable Development Summit - which was held recently in Brazil - meetings, where the international community firmly set sustainable development and a Green Growth as an apex priority, we have also, as South Africa, prioritised the transition to a sustainable, job-creating, low- carbon and inclusive green economy.
We have begun the introduction of the green economy with the utilisation of our Green Fund, which we announced last year. Through our implementing agency, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the DBSA, funds have already been allocated through the first window of opportunity to projects that have proved to be sustainable, and are mainly in the alternative energy sector, but also, more importantly, are making a difference in the communities.
The success of our efforts made thus far will be reflected in the 2012 SA Environmental Outlook Report, which is to be published this year. The report will provide an analysis of the state of the environment, covering South Africa's land resources, ecosystems and biodiversity, inland water systems, oceans and coasts, energy, air quality, climate change and waste. Early indications are that while we have made progress towards sustainably managing our environmental resources in the process of transitioning to a low carbon green economy, many challenges still remain. Early this year, we launched the zero emission pure electric green cars for the nation as a national pilot programme. The department had to demonstrate government commitment to the reduction of carbon emissions that are chiefly responsible for climate change. That green car is standing outside there. It drives nicely, like any other car. It is beautiful. I think all of us must try to move to low carbon emission.
The environmental challenges experienced in different regions of the world represent not only a significant and historic challenge to our generation, but also an opportunity for change. Next month we will also launch the SA Green Economy modelling report. The report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme, Unep, at our request, will be a useful contribution to supporting the vision and leadership of South Africa in paving the way towards a green and inclusive economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication in South Africa. We will also ensure that all interventions we develop and all studies that we conduct are aligned with the National Development Plan's target for job creation that is set at 11 million jobs by 2030. "Noka e tlatswa ke dinokana". [A river is swelled by streams.]
Our green economy interventions must support this roadmap to ensure that our programmes positively contribute to this target and centrally position our sector as a hub of job creation, whilst not deviating from our mandate of protecting the integrity of the environment. The sustainable use of indigenous biological resources is indeed very fundamental to the development of South Africa's economy. The bioprospecting and hunting industries, particularly, are also integral to our contribution to sustainable development and green jobs. I know the Deputy Minister has a lot to say in that regard.
Recent estimates have placed the bioprospecting industry's contribution to the gross domestic product, the GDP, here in South Africa, at R2,1 billion, which, if combined, places the contribution of the direct utilisation of indigenous biological resources at R8,3 billion. In the previous financial year, the entire value chain of the hunting industry contributed some R6,2 billion to the South African GDP. We will embark on a dedicated programme to provide support to the hunting and bioprospecting industries, to promote South Africa as the destination of choice for hunting, and as one of the most resource-rich countries to contribute to bioprospecting.
Last year, we undertook a concerted effort to build human capital in the biodiversity sector. Working with the SA National Biodiversity Institute, Sanbi, through our programme Groen Sebenza - that is the programme we announced last year - we have partnered with 33 organisations to create a cadre of 800 confident and competent people to work at all levels of government and in the private sector. This launch will form part of our Youth Month celebrations as well as our celebration of Environment Month.
We must acknowledge the notion that there is necessarily a trade-off to be made between faster economic growth and the conservation of our environment. The myth that there is a conflict between economic development and environmental health must be challenged and debunked. Good environmental management coupled with integrated development planning will allow us to build a low carbon economy that supports resilient ecosystems and economies. Healthy and intact ecosystems give us more options for responding to climate change, alleviating poverty and also building a green economy. We are committed to improving the socioeconomic benefits within the environmental sector, by creating 65 494 job opportunities, which will yield 34 019 full-time equivalent jobs. The targeted designated groups are women, youth and people living with disabilities. That is our target as environmental sector.
We have accessed a total amount of R2,39 billion from the Expanded Public Works Programme for our environmental programmes in this financial year, which will boost the job creation objectives of government, and secure vital environmental benefits from the work to be done. The jobs will not be created in isolation from the department's mandate; hence the Working for Water programme, which the Deputy Minister will speak to, and the Working on Fire and Environmental Protection and Infrastructure programmes. Through their various subprogrammes, we will also deliver environmental outputs such as rehabilitating wetlands; cleaning more than 2 100 kilometres of coastline; rehabilitation of estuaries and dunes; construction of boardwalks to facilitate access; planting trees; building of waste buy-back centres; removing invasive alien plants; provision of infrastructure to facilitate conservation and rehabilitating thousands of hectares of land this year. All those are programmes that the Deputy Minister is taking care of. The jobs created will be coupled with skills development wherein about 184 263 accredited training person days will be achieved.
During this financial year, we aim to spend over R1,13 billion on the Working for Water and associated programmes, whilst Working on Fire will get R406 million, and the environmental protection and infrastructure programmes will get R817 million. It is a lot of money, a lot of work and a lot of job creation.
Forestry SA calculated that the damage to the forestry industry, through the major fires, amounts to about R3,6 billion, but this would have been double had it not been for the Working on Fire partnership.
We would like to improve our partnerships with the farming community in this regard, and strengthen our ability to respond more efficiently and effectively. The biggest budget allocations are, again, going towards the Eastern Cape and the SA National Parks, SanParks, projects. I should mention that the SanParks budget includes the funding for the Eco-Furniture industry that I know the Deputy Minister is taking care of, and she will be speaking at length on that.
As we prepare to celebrate Youth Month, I would like to re-emphasise our concern over the growing number of unemployed young people. As we begin the third decade of our democracy, the ability of our country to upscale to a conducive environment for young people in South Africa to be absorbed into active economic participation, is of vital importance. As part of our environmental sector contribution towards addressing this challenge of youth unemployment in the country, we have initiated two programmes which encourage better environmental management practices within our communities.
Firstly, the Youth Environmental Services, YES, programme will benefit 2 700 young people over the next three years. [Applause.] Upon exiting the programme, these young people will be placed in either permanent employment or further training institutions. We will launch this programme next month - which is a few days from now - as part of our celebration of Youth and Environment Month. Secondly, we will also, as we committed in our speech last year, be launching the Youth Jobs in Waste Programme again in June this year.
This project is expected to create over 600 job opportunities in both the North West and Free State provinces. The project, once rolled out nationally, is expected to provide 3 577 young people with job opportunities in waste management and related entrepreneurship. I am sure you would recall our national Waste Management Strategy. It also makes a call for entrepreneurs to be created in that regard.
In addition to these youth employment initiatives, there is the introduction of Environmental Monitors to deal with environmental threats in protected areas, including the scourge of rhino poaching nationally. Through this programme, 1 000 young people will be employed to strengthen our fight against poaching of the rhino and other environmental challenges.
With regard to compliance, we need to ensure that our environmental laws are actually adhered to. There has been further expansion of the Green Scorpions' capacity at local level, since the first protocol was signed with the Limpopo provincial government in February 2012. Since then, most provinces have made progress in relation to the signing of the protocols with the relevant local authorities. To date, 48 Environmental Management Inspectors have been designated in different local municipalities across the country and are anticipated to get us to the next higher increased number.
There will, however, also be a need to have focused efforts in the Eastern Cape, the Northern Cape and the Free State, where implementation protocols have not yet been signed with any of the local authorities.
I am encouraged that the department has been given tremendous support by our partners in the fight against environmental crimes. On behalf of our department, I would like to say this boldly from this podium: a big thank you to the SA Police Service, the SAPS, the SA National Defence Force, the SANDF, and the Department of Justice, as well as our courts, for ensuring that they work with us and support us in the fight against rhino poaching, but also in ensuring that they send a very clear and strong message that we are not going to stand by and watch our environmental laws being violated and our heritage being stolen.
The department is also in the process of developing a comprehensive compliance and enforcement strategy that will provide us with a gap analysis enabling us to ensure that within the limited resources, we achieve the most effective and efficient implementation of, or compliance with our legislation.
The National Waste Management Strategy continues to contribute to the creation of varied industries that are deliberately structured to deliver sustainable livelihoods. At present, three district municipalities in the Northern Cape, two in Gauteng and two in Mpumalanga are being assisted with the development of the Integrated Waste Management Plans, in order to ensure that the planning ... Thank you very much. [Time expired.] [Applause.]